In June 2024, PharmaJet announced that the Tropis Intradermal (ID) Needle-free System will be used for a house-to-house polio immunisation in Somalia. The campaign, a collaboration of the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET), WHO, UNICEF, BMGF, Gavi, and CDC, will target over 170,000 children across 4 districts in Banadir. It will be conducted in two rounds, offering children between 4 and 59 months the needle-free polio vaccine and novel oral polio vaccine to reach 95% coverage.
Fighting an ongoing outbreak
PharmaJet states that an ongoing variant poliovirus outbreak, which is the longest running of its kind, has paralysed 38 children in Somalia. In April, Somalia’s Minister for Health and Human services, His Excellency Dr Ali Haji Adam, met high-level representatives of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) to review progress and accelerate efforts to end the 7-year outbreak. The Somalia Emergency Action Plan (SEAP) 3, presented at the meeting, “builds on measures taken so far and will fill existing gaps in polio eradication efforts”.
“The plan prioritises robust, high-quality polio vaccination campaigns and better poliovirus surveillance. Efforts will also be targeted at high-risk populations in hard-to-reach areas and where variant poliovirus is circulating, as well as underserved, displaced, and nomadic communities.”
PharmaJet’s involvement in the campaign
The campaign in Somalia comes after “positive results” from a WHO-lead pilot in Nigeria. This demonstrated that administering an injectable vaccine with Tropis facilitated high coverage rates and that most parents (94%) and health staff members (93%) preferred needle-free injections. In this campaign 87% of target group children received immunisation. The Tropis System was also deployed for polio vaccinations in the Berbera Region of Somaliland, supporting high immunisation coverage thanks to preference for the use of intradermal needle-free delivery and parental enthusiasm for less invasive administration.
Paul LaBarre, Vice President, Global Business Development, PharmaJet, is “very pleased” with the collaboration on “this important campaign”. With the experience of delivering “over 10 million polio immunisations” with needle-free technology in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Somalia”, the team is “very committed” to the GPEI.
“In Somalia, we are eager to build on previous house-to-house campaign experience that demonstrates how needle-free enables vaccination teams to move quickly and achieve high coverage without the burden of sharps waste management and with reduced vaccine volume and cold chain logistics.”
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